Coringa, Herald & Magdelaine Cays
- MODIS image
- date unknown
Faintly imaged here are the three groups of cays that make up the 8,860 km² Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve, located around 400 km east of Cairns (on the Queensland coast of Australia) and 220 to 320 km from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef. The Coringa-Herald NNR has protected these delicate cays and reefs as a strict nature reserve since 1982.
Coringa-Herald comprises 6 cays, grouped into three pairs: the Herald Cays (at left in the above image), comprising South West and North East Cays; the Coringa Islets (at image centre), comprising South West (Coringa Islet) and Chilcott Islet (obscured by cloud in the image); and the Magdelaine Cays (top-right of the image), comprising North West Islet and South East Cay. Each has a fringing coral reef and range in size from 0.16 to 0.37 km², covering 1.24 km² in total. South-East Magdelaine Cay is the largest measuring about 1,200 m by 500 m. Each of the pairs of cays rise from the ocean bed from separate platform reef systems.
Most of the islets and cays are composed of sand, rocks and coral rubble, that rise no higher than 5 m above sea level. All the cays, except for North West Cay in the Magdelaine Cays are vegetated with grasses and herbs, while North East Herald Cay and South East Magdelaine Cay have forests of Pisonia grandis and Cordia, providing an important habitat for nesting seabirds.
For a sense of scale in the above image, the two islets of the Herald Cays (left edge of image) are separated by about 6 km.
